Beau Read online

  Beau

  The Mavericks, Book 4

  Dale Mayer

  Books in This Series:

  Kerrick, Book 1

  Griffin, Book 2

  Jax, Book 3

  Beau, Book 4

  Asher, Book 5

  Ryker, Book 6

  Miles, Book 7

  Nico, Book 8

  Keane, Book 9

  Lennox, Book 10

  Gavin, Book 11

  Shane, Book 12

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  About Asher

  Author’s Note

  Complimentary Download

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  What happens when the very men—trained to make the hard decisions—come up against the rules and regulations that hold them back from doing what needs to be done? They either stay and work within the constraints given to them or they walk away. Only now, for a select few, they have another option:

  The Mavericks. A covert black ops team that steps up and break all the rules … but gets the job done.

  Welcome to a new military romance series by USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. A series where you meet new friends and just might get to meet old ones too in this raw and compelling look at the men who keep us safe every day from the darkness where they operate—and live—in the shadows … until someone special helps them step into the light.

  Not the size to blend in anywhere … Not that he cared …

  Beau heads to Alaska to a cult that kidnaps women to flesh out its numbers. One woman in particular has gone missing. When her father calls in a favor, Beau is asked to fit into the cult community. Only his style is guns blazing, and he doesn’t bother counting the dead …

  Danica was late for her college class when a hood was thrown over her head, and then she was tossed into the back of a vehicle. Days later, she wakes up on a dirt floor of a cell with only a grate above her head. But she’ll take it as she’s nothing if not innovative. As soon as she escapes her prison, she runs into the brick wall that’s Beau. He’d good at giving orders. She’s not so good at following them …

  With dozens of lives at stake in a sex-trafficking scheme, neither Beau nor Danica had expected it would be action all the way for them as they battle to free other women and to stay alive–together.

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  Chapter 1

  Beau Madison walked along the New York City street until he came to the small coffee shop. He sat down, and coffee appeared magically in front of him. He smiled and picked up the cup and, underneath the saucer, was a number. He opened up his phone and quickly linked up the number to a website. There were instructions.

  Good morning, Beau. Are you ready to go on your own mission?

  Just then his phone rang. “Yes,” he said. “Everybody said that we would do one job. What do you do when we run out of people?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Jax said with a smile in his voice. “But I think we’re moving into teams after this. Bigger teams for bigger jobs. And, for some of us, it’s almost like a graduation party.”

  “So, once I’ve done this mission,” Beau said, “I get to join you guys?”

  “Yes,” Jax said. “What we didn’t realize was how this was an initiation. And I’m not allowed to tell you any more than that.”

  “Hey, I’m glad to even hear that much,” he said, “because sometimes I think we’re just disappearing into the middle of nowhere. Can’t say I want to lose track of everyone.”

  “Right. But, if you’re up for it, all details will be sent to you immediately.”

  “Sounds good,” Beau said. And just before Jax signed off, Beau asked, “What’s my destination?”

  “You’re heading up north. A cult’s been picking up women and bringing them in as sex slaves.”

  “Shit,” Beau said. “Some guys have all the luck.”

  “Well, maybe but maybe not,” Jax said. “One of those women is the daughter of a very big business mogul. He runs a lot of high-couture modeling agencies. His daughter was picked up on her way from college, tossed into the back of the vehicle, and never seen again.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Six days.”

  “Shit. So long ago? Why haven’t we been called in earlier?”

  “Nobody knew where she was. But they caught a potential sighting of her in Alaska about ten miles west of Anchorage just a couple days ago.”

  “Well, Alaska is a good place to be at this time of year.”

  Jax laughed. “As long as you don’t mind horseflies the size of mice.”

  “I remember those,” Beau said with a groan. “Just me again?”

  “Nope. An old buddy of yours is going too.”

  “Good. Who?”

  “You’ll see him when you arrive in Anchorage.”

  “And when the hell is that?”

  “Tickets are already on your phone.” And, with that, Jax hung up.

  Beau checked the incoming slips to see he would fly out in exactly six hours. “Wow, you sure don’t give a guy much time in between ops.” Beau looked around and had enough time to finish his coffee and to eat something and then to grab some clean clothes before he was off on his own mission.

  His own mission. That felt like a challenge for the first time in many years.

  He was looking forward to it.

  Chapter 2

  Beau stepped off the airplane and walked through the airport with his duffel bag on his shoulder and headed straight for the exit. He’d been in Anchorage enough times that he knew his way around, although it didn’t really matter. He traveled the world over, hitting airports from Third World countries to Western societies and everything in between. He was a comfortable traveler, but then he’d spent most of his time working as part of a team. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was part of now. He’d come off a very strange case with Jax, but he had settled in somewhat and was now running behind-the-scenes work for Beau. Not a bad system; do a training period and initiation and then become part of something bigger. At least Beau hoped so.

  He’d been doing black ops missions most of his career. This was no different. As long as he appeared to be a tourist, nobody would ever know. It was hard for him to be inconspicuous though. He was six foot six and a good two hundred and fifty pounds, and that’s only because he worked to keep his weight down. He did like his groceries. At the same time, his height caused strangers to glance at him twice no matter where he traveled.

  It didn’t make his life any easier when he tried to blend in; however, he walked without giving a shit what kind of attention he garnered. That made it a little bit easier. He’d learned how to slip in and out of crowds or even an entire society with the same ease. It’s not something that you were trained to do, but it was something they hoped you learned along the way. And by they, he meant his former SEALs units.

  But now Beau was part of something different. He knew the men who had joined the Mavericks team ahead of him, but he wasn’t exactly sure who came next behind him. Apparently Beau would see him as soon as he made it to the Alaska airport. He checked his watch—9:35 p.m.—and strode out into
the sunshine. He had to smile at that. No matter how many times he came to Anchorage, he just couldn’t wrap his head around how late darkness settled in here. Sunset wouldn’t be until 11:12 p.m. tonight per an online weather site. Beau shook his head and took a moment to inhale several deep breaths. There was something about the air up here; maybe it was the lack of smog or the lack of population. Whatever it was, it was like getting a healthy tonic injected directly into his veins. He closed his eyes, opened his lungs, and let the oxygen sink in deep.

  “Haven’t changed a bit, have you?” asked a familiar voice.

  Beau, his eyes still closed, grinned. “Well, well, well,” he said. “Asher.” He turned and reached out a hand.

  Asher wasn’t having anything to do with that. Instead he gave Beau a hug. The men were not quite the same size but weren’t far off. Beau hugged him fiercely. Some friends preferred a slap on their backs or a handshake. Beau preferred a hug any day.

  Beau grinned at his friend and said, “You never told me.”

  “You,” Asher said, with a narrowing gaze, “never told me.”

  “True,” he said. “Who knew so many of us were ready for a change in life?”

  “I think it was the need to get things done without following all the rules,” Asher said.

  “Well, there are some rules still,” he said. “You know certain things we can’t do ourselves, at least depending on which country we’re in,” Beau said. “Did you hear anything about the mission I did with Jax?”

  Asher shook his head. “No, not all of it. What I did hear seemed pretty strange to me.”

  “Especially when the pirates involved a cruise ship,” Beau said with a hard nod. “But it came down to the same thing as always—greed and obsession.”

  “Meaning power,” Asher said, nodding. “Let’s go.” He pointed to the parking lot.

  “Your rig?”

  “While we’re here, yes.”

  “So not a rental?”

  “Don’t like working with rentals if we don’t have to,” Asher said. “Besides, our Mavericks people left us a briefcase full of cash for this op in a prepaid locker in the airport, the key waiting for me at the information desk. So I paid cash for this beauty.”

  Beau laughed when he saw the vehicle, an older truck that looked like it’d been to hell and back. “It’s lived up here for a while, has it?”

  “Yep, sure has,” Asher said with a big grin.

  Beau dropped his duffel bag in the bed of the pickup. He looked with interest at the cardboard boxes, the big tool crate, and some other metal cases that looked like ammo boxes in the back.

  “Army surplus?”

  “Best stores ever,” Asher said. “You can buy all kinds of stuff and keep it in the boxes, and no one cares because everybody uses these damn things for everything from grain to lunch kits to ammo.”

  Beau laughed. “Works for me.” He hesitated but watched as Asher hopped into the driver’s seat. “You know I don’t like being a passenger,” Beau said.

  “Tough shit,” Asher said. “When you arrive first and pick up the rig that you want, then you can drive.”

  “Fair enough,” Beau said. “Did you get a file on this case?”

  “I got a link,” Asher said. “No file download yet because, if I do, I have to destroy the phone that I download it on.”

  “Right,” Beau said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two disposable phones and handed one to Asher. “Untraceable. Download on that.”

  “Good,” he said. “I understand we’re high on budget too.”

  “Yes,” he said, “and interesting methods of travel. Basically anything we need, we get. And, if we need cooperation from any US government department, we just tell our Mavericks contact.”

  “Sweet,” Asher said. “Not sure how much actual use that’ll be for us here. Alaska may be the fourty-ninth state, but it’s so disjointed from the rest of the states that it makes it that much more difficult to share resources.”

  “Never know,” he said. “I’ve been in a lot of different places so far, and you don’t really know who you can count on. Except now we have a pass that gets us into anything.”

  “I kind of like this,” he said.

  “Except not this op,” Beau said. “We’ve got a daughter kidnapped and most likely tossed into a cult up here that is apparently grooming sex slaves to move offshore to well-heeled clients.”

  “Really?”

  “You know what the sex-slave trafficking market is like,” Beau said. “There are always people willing to pay money for them.”

  “Sure, but why are they taking highly visible women for that?”

  “I was thinking about that as I traveled,” Beau said. “Either they didn’t know or didn’t care. Still, after my last mission, I have to wonder if she was targeted on purpose, as if somebody had an ax to grind.”

  “That would make sense to me, particularly if it’s another woman.”

  “Yeah, once the cats fight each other, there seems to be no limit as to how mean they can get.”

  “Guys just turn around and shoot someone dead. But women? Wow, they like to torture you for years.”

  Beau chuckled. “We also have to make sure that she’s there first. The sighting was a couple days ago.”

  “And she went missing five, almost six days ago, correct?”

  “Apparently missing since Tuesday morning. Satellite images show a large compound. Our Mavericks people think somewhere around sixty people are in residence.”

  Asher whistled. “That’s a lot of people.”

  “We don’t know how many of those are management and how many of those are victims.”

  “Are they flying clientele in? Or are they moving women out?”

  “Both, I suspect. Probably to the highest bidder.”

  “In which case they want virgins,” Asher said.

  “Or those who look virginal.”

  “Right, new blood, because, once you’re in the system for a little while, there’s absolutely nothing young and fresh about you.”

  “She’s a college student.”

  “So she would fit the market pretty decently. I imagine colleges and campuses all across the world are great hunting grounds.”

  “You’d think that, in a case like this, they’d add in ransom too.”

  “Potentially,” Asher said. “We can’t rule it out. The other thing is, if the blackmail is too high and if the father can’t pay, the girl is tossed into the system regardless. Maybe competing buyers will pay more for her.”

  “That adds an element of nastiness I really don’t want to contemplate,” Beau said quietly. “I’ll get to rape my competitor’s daughter knowing that he can’t or couldn’t afford to keep her safe?” He shook his head and stared out at the world. “I know this is partly why I’m in this field,” he muttered, “but it still sucks.”

  “Well, now we know about it,” he said, “so we’ll get intel and rescue the daughter, and then we’ll bring in the authorities to break it apart and to rescue everybody else.”

  “I think we also need to get ahold of their shipping information and their ordering system,” Beau said. “I hate to think that women are being shipped out today that we’ll miss saving because we’re coming in too late.”

  “We’ll backtrack as many as we can,” Asher said, “but you know we can’t save them all.”

  “I know,” he said. He glanced at his buddy. “Did you quit the navy?”

  “I did,” Asher said. “I didn’t discuss it with anyone. I worked out my time, and I was done.”

  “You mean, when your tour was up?”

  “Exactly. I didn’t sign back up again. You?”

  “They contacted me before my tour was over. I did the last job while I was still part of the system.” He shook his head. “It was the same but different.”

  “But that’s because war is all around the world,” Asher said. “They’re the same but different.”

  “Unfortunately you
’re so right there.”

  Danica Lindstrom twisted, once again trying to free her hands. Her hands and feet were tied, and she had a gag over her mouth. She would have been much more comfortable without any of it, but she’d brought this on herself. She wouldn’t stay quiet and had kicked and fought, so, rather than knocking her out or giving her drugs, like before, they had just tied her up and tossed her into this cold and empty room.

  Between the horseflies that loved to take chunks out of her and the hot sunlight that came through a grate with no glass above her head, she’d been suffering in silence for two days. They came once a day and gave her food, and twice she was allowed a bathroom break, but then the bungee cords were strapped back on again, and she was left alone.

  The first time they’d thrown her on the floor, it had taken forever to maneuver her way up onto the bed and off the cold ground, where there were more bugs than she’d seen in her entire life because the floor was tightly packed dirt. There was no concrete, although it felt like it when dropped here. And she knew that, as soon as the skies opened up and the rain came down, her cell would turn to mud.

  She couldn’t imagine what she’d done to deserve this. She’d been heading to her digital marketing class, crossing the campus late, rushing, not even seeing her surroundings as she exited the parking lot. She’d been so focused. She was moving toward the first pathway when somebody had stopped to ask her for directions. She was irritated because she was so late, yet she gave him some simple directions.

  While she was focused on sharing those, somebody else had thrown a hood over her head, clipped straps around her ankles and wrists, and she’d been tossed into a vehicle and taken away. She didn’t know why or who. Nobody spoke to her. Nobody said anything. Nor had anybody confirmed her identity, and that bothered her. Didn’t it matter who she was? It should matter who she was. Not that she was some famous person, but she was someone special regardless. To think that they were blindly grabbing young women off a campus terrified her.

  She’d been conscious enough at times to confirm she had been on a flight and, at some point later, transferred to a vehicle and then finally, after several days of traveling, she’d been moved into this place. It was a nightmare that wouldn’t end. She figured that she was in some Alcatraz scenario, and nobody gave a shit. They were trying to break her will or at least get compliance from her. So far, she hadn’t been willing to cooperate, hence the nasty conditions she suffered right now. She rolled over and groaned once again. Her shoulders were stretched at such an angle that she couldn’t move her hands behind her to have an extra inch of breathing space.